Angle favors less government oversight

Sharron Angle, who lost a spirited U.S. Senate race to Harry Reid in 2010 with 45 percent of the vote, filed earlier this month to oppose incumbent Congressman Mark Amodei for Congressional District 2, which includes all or part of 10 rural counties, and all of Washoe County, which has the state’s second largest block of voters behind Clark.

Both Republican candidates face each other in the June primary. Two other candidates on the GOP side have also filed: Joel Beck and Ian Luetkehans.

When she filed on March 5, Angle cited “Amodei’s soft positions on Obamacare and immigration among the reasons she decided to run for second Congressional (CD2) seat that covers 11 Northern Nevada counties.”

Angle, whose daughter and her family reside in Fallon, recently sat down with the Lahontan Valley News to discuss her candidacy. She has been involved with Nevada politics since the early 1990s when she was first elected to the Nye County School Board. She served in the Nevada Assembly from 1999 to 2007 and unsuccessfully ran for the same congressional seat in 2006, which Dean Heller won to succeed Jim Gibbons, who was elected governor.

Angle said her record differs from Amodei, who is running for a fourth term.

“I’m a constitutionally conservative Republican,” she said. “Mark’s conservative rating is 43 percent from the Conservative Review, 53 percent from Heritage (Foundation) and 58 percent from Club for Growth.”

She said those scores across the board equal an F as a conservative.

Angle said she favors lower taxes, less government regulations and more individual freedom. She claims Amodei’s record, though, shows him for more taxes. When she served in the Assembly, Amodei was a state senator. She said their views differed on many issues, even during that time. Angle said Amodei voted for a rural county representative to be reassigned to Southern Nevada, while she opposed it during the 2001 reapportionment.

“I voted against sending our seat south,” she said. “We’re at opposite ends of issues, and the people need to see the records.”

At the federal level, Angle said she favors the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which, she said, Amodei has voted to fund; she said Yucca Mountain could be beneficial to recycle nuclear spent rods to foreign nations and make it an industry in Nevada; and she would like to see workable immigration laws; and she opposes amnesty.

“Amnesty shouldn’t be on the table,” she said. “It’s not a viable alternative. (President Ronald) Reagan showed us that. Yet, Mark has voted repeatedly for amnesty.”

Angle said no one in the Nevada congressional delegation from either the House of Representatives or Senate appears to be negotiating as a representative for using Yucca Mountain. Angle, whose husband Ted worked for the Bureau of Land Management before retiring, said she has a different insight into land use.

“I saw first-hand how the regulation of public lands affected us here in Nevada,” she said, adding residents should look at the enumerated powers in the U.S. Constitution. By definition, “One way to limit the power of the new Congress under the Constitution was to be specific about what it could do. These enumerated, or listed, powers were contained in Article I, Section 8 — the great laundry list of congressional chores.”

For example, she doesn’t see how enumerated powers apply to maintaining wild horses or controlling public lands because Nevada, she said, must be a stakeholder in many of these issues. Angle, however, said Nevada has a role to play in national defense, and the enumerated powers provide for the state’s lands to be used for that.

Angle champions the Second Amendment.

“We have the right to keep and bear arms,” she said.

As with a recent shooting where the assailant had mental issues, she said the human element must be addressed rather than the “tool” or weapon. She referred to the mass shooting and gunman in Florida on Valentine’s Day.

“Obviously, this person had been crying for help for years and years,” she said. “We don’t have a good enough system to deal with the human element.”

Angle said concealed carry laws, though, give citizens the right to defend themselves and said educators should be allowed to arm themselves in the schools and be on the first line of defense.

“We should allow folks working in schools to be allowed to carry weapons,” she stressed. “Teachers have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Everyone has a right to work in a place where they feel safe.”

With more than 60 days remaining before the primary election, Angle said the CD2 race may be determined in June. Up until that time, Angle said she is going to different communities within the district and talking with voters at meet and greets.